Spent the best part of two hours this morning waiting in a queue at my local pharmacy, to pick up a routine prescription.

First of all I arrived at 08:00 - the opening time advertised on their website - only to discover a sign in the window announcing the "Coronavirus opening times", which are 11:30 - 17:30 with a lunchtime closure between 13:00 and 14:00.

So, taking my second journey of the day I arrived at 11:00 to wait for them to open. Approximately 30 people were ahead of me in the queue - all spaced at least 2 metres apart and snaked around the car park of the surgery/pharmacy.

Standing in the queue, it was touch and go whether or not I'd make the 13:00 closure, but fortunately I got the front of the queue with 10 minutes to spare - at which point there were at least another 30 people behind me...

The queue was very "British" - politely moaning to each other but secretly enjoying the company of strangers.

The San Francisco Bay Area was among the first in the USA to be placed in "lockdown" / shelter in residence mode. My two high school teenagers are receiving assignments from their schools/teachers via the internet while staying home as all schools are shut down. My wife works part-time at a preschool which has been closed. I have worked from my home office since 2012 so my daily routine is largely the same, except I'm spending less time outdoors when I do have breaks in my work schedule. I wish the best for all during these challenging times.

Put them all together and position around one of the open treads of my stairs and voila. TRX Straps.

For my aerobic work, I do a session on the Cross Trainer machine which has a Langlauf motion and I remembered that I have a pair of Trekking poles in my garage. Dug them out and I'll be off for a brisk walk.

Now to put them to the test.

Guy

Sent from my Xperia 5 using Tapatalk

Gave my home TRX straps a work out yesterday afternoon and have made / need to make a couple of changes;-

1. I wasn't happy with the plastic clip on the webbing belt around the stair tread being potentially weak, so replaced that strap with a 1.5" leather belt. Sound.

2. The 2 x 1 timber that I'm using for hand grips, doesn't sit in my hands comfortably; needs to be rotated by 90 degrees and the strap around secured further with cable ties (not just gaffer tape).

3. Running adjustment; lengthen the straps to make my exercises more effective.

As to home life at chez Bahnstormer, I'm retired, my son who still lives with me and works locally in the HQ of one of our National Supermarket chains has been working at home since last Tuesday, resulting in me losing the use of my PC as he is in the study (spare bedroom), although he uses his work Laptop. He's on pre-booked Annual Leave this week and had planned to go shopping, to the Cinema etc. All now cancelled.

Much as we tend to 'do our own thing' in the evenings, we have instigated Tuesday and Thursday nights being Film Night. We saw, A Quiet Place and Paddington 2 (Hugh Grant was a fab baddie) last week. Not sure what's up this evening.

For me, I have time to work in the garden and do some spring cleaning, as I'm not able (shouldn't/won't) go out to see/meet my girlfriend, even though she only lives <10 miles away. Still, it is said; absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Finally, I had a long weekend booked away, with girlfriend and my dog (Davie's getting to be a bit of an old boy and I'm not keen for him to go into kennels these days) in a cottage/house on the edge of the Brecon Beacons for the end of April/beginning of May.

The holiday company I'm using Holiday Cottages were a few days ago asking anyone with a holiday booked, starting before 4th June to defer it to a later date. I've simply asked to go at the same time next year.

First visit to the supermarket since the new “stay at home” measures were announced on Monday.

Very civilised. Part of the car park converted to the queuing area. Arrived at 10:30am, 2m distance markers on the ground outside. Only took 5 minutes to get in the store. Inside nearly everyone had the hang of keeping at a 2m distance, often waiting until there was a big enough gap to pass someone.

No shortage of anything we had wanted to buy, except bread flower and cooking wine.

Noted that people still seem keen to binge on pasta, rice, tinned pulses and stuff from the freezer aisle, as those shelves were empty.

The state of the wine aisle gave the appearance that many intended to get drunk on a regular basis whilst stuck indoors.

The state of the wine aisle gave the appearance that many intended to get drunk on a regular basis whilst stuck indoors.
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A rather surreal experience on a lovely sunny day.

Neil

Now that is tragic to see! Wine aisles should never be that low in stock....should be a law

Same up here. Lots of snow in the past week, and temperatures below -20C (-4F), when normal should be around +6/42F. We had false spring in February, and now we are in 3rd (or maybe 4th) winter. I really need to see some bare ground right now.